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Redrilling 6 Lug Wheels (pictorial)


rrgrr
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So I've read probably every thread on this, but haven't seen anything too detailed, so I'll give it a shot for those nervous types like myself.

 

I didn't want to go drilling the hubs -just in case I didn't like the result, and also because I had some good snow tires on wagon wheels, and want to be able to swap 'em out at will...

 

I went and found these 15" 6 lug wheels at an affordable price -these came from a 98 Nissan Frontier with the 5.5" lug spacing

00404_jfzsJvZzlqi_600x450.jpg

 

You can see the hub section is fairly flat and the offset is good to keep the tires inside the fenders.

Went to the suby yard and got a front hub & knocked two of the studs out to use as a jig.

Then I bolted that carefully to the back of the wheel with the suby lugs and let the bevel center them up.

I was able to borrow a transfer punch that fit the lug hole from a local shop, and went and got a good 1/2" drill bit -just slightly bigger than the stud

w1.jpg

Gave that punch one good whack and it was drillin' time.

I drilled the holes enough to get a good start, then removed the hub and finished up drilling thru.

w22.jpg

 

The Milwaukee "wrist breaker" met its fate after about 6 holes. I don't recommend using this type of drill, I just thought (wrong) that electric power would be better than battery. Turns out the Bosch cordless finished the job with much less effort.

w4.jpg

 

A quick test fit just to get an idea how things will work

w7.jpg

 

Seems okay -the lugs had no problem tightening down on the front side, everything seems solid and centered -I did not bevel the holes. there's not a lot of space between the wheel back side and shock, but I am going for some smaller big tires 26"-ish maybe a 195-205/70 or 75 we'll have to do some test fitting to see what works...

w6.jpg

 

I sprayed down the hub before I put on the wheel to see what kind of contact I was getting with the hub -if you see the dark spots around the outer edge of the wheel hub -that is where much of the mating surface is on this type of wheel and not so much right surrounding the lugs -that apparently is the way they are designed. On the undrilled lug holes, there's a bit of an indent -I think I'm going to hang a thin washer on those lugs just to fill that in and pick up a little more surface contact there. The center of the wheel draws down nice and tight.

w5.jpg

That about covers it.

Pretty simple, really -about 30 minutes work (being careful) once I had all the tools together.

 

Tomorrow is tire day, (I hope) and I will be back with the final results.

 

Let me know what you think and if I've left out any detail...

 

 

 

 

 

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